Allegro for Crisis
by Countess Wildcard
Summary: In the summer before Harry Potter's fifth year at Hogwarts the Dark Lord seeks ancient powers that once resided in Eygpt, but the Minstry seeks the same powers for their own ends....
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-gi-oh or Harry Potter. People who make a lot more money then me do. 

Allegro for Crisis

_Prologue_

_Warning Lament_

            Yugi tossed in his sleep, peace would not bless his slumber and grant him rest. In his dreams voices rang in fear and despair draining all color except for the reds of blood.  His throat caught as he watched the destruction of people he did not know, but his heart and stomach twisted at the sight of such atrocities. Acrid air scorched his nose with the smell of ash and rot. The scene bleached to blessed, empty white. The air was clear of all noise and scent.  The white took on the dimensions of a vast hall and cooled into granite. A young woman stood at the end of the hall in a white dress reminiscent of classical Greek styles.  Her face could have been Helen of Troy's intoxicating physique. Her opal eyes sought Yugi's and her voice was heady like well-aged wine, "Many troubles burden the world Little Champion. To what end would you see them come?"

            Yugi's forehead creased as he broke the question down, "I don't-"

            The woman's smile was laced with sorrow and hope, "No you don't. You cannot understand that which you have no knowledge of."

            "Who are you?" Yugi asked as he walked the length of the hall to make conversation easier.

            "I am the Oracle of Delphi," She raised a hand to quite Yugi's questions. Her voice wrapped around the room with subtle command, "I have limited time before the vapors and the interpreters return and deprive me of this lucid consciousness, listen well. In a few days time there will be two who come baring ill tidings. Heed the first to avoid the second who would lead you to eternal dark. Follow the first messenger's path, but trust only a wise mage seated at the head of halls of learning."   

            "Where is that?" Yugi's mind reeled as he pieced together the vague warning.

            "In the old country of a western empire…" The Oracle's voiced dropped off suddenly, around them the hall began to loose shape and definition. The Oracle's eyes sharpened with panic,  "Curse their futures! They return to rob me of consciousness! Darkness rises Yugi, do not fall to it no matter how sweet the path may seem. The bearer of the Millennium Puzzle must not become corrupted or all is lost." 

            Before Yugi could respond the Oracle's eyes lost their stinging focus and filled with unseeing emotions. Her opal eyes didn't see the small duelist anymore; they darted about looking from one thing to another that was not there.  Yugi steeled his muscles as she collapsed forward towards him. The hall dissolved as she fell and Yugi sat upright in bed before the fall was finished.

            The light of a waxing quarter moon fell on the foot of the bed. Yugi's breathing stilled slowly as he woke up fully. The world here was stable with solid, unshifting lines and strong colors. Outside the quarter moon watched with pale eyes and weak magic waiting for other nights with terrible prescience. 


	2. Chapter I

**Allegro for Crisis**

**_ Chapter I_**

_Necromancy In D minor_

_First Movement_

            The Kiaba corps research facility looked like a war zone. Most of the windows had been knocked out of the buildings and many of the doors had been ripped out of their proper places. The heavy bittersweet smell of rot penetrated every surface and corpses lay out in the noonday Louisiana sun to be attacked by swarms of flies. Decay accelerated in the June heat that suppressed everything else. The air was stagnant; no sound moved the molasses like atmosphere. At the edge of the compound a beat up jeep pulled up and the engine was killed. A tall young man in a blue duster got out of the jeep and glared condescendingly at the driver, "Well?"

            The driver sighed and ran a hand threw her short cropped platinum blond hair,  "Gas masks first off, if the smell is already this strong out here it'll boarder on toxic towards the center."

             Seto Kiaba tapped his foot impatiently as the blond tossed him a gas mask she pulled out of the back of the jeep,  "The operations building is in the center of the compound."

            _This job is paying your tuition to Oxford Latiaran, if the Boy-Billionaire extraordinaire wants to get himself ruffed up by a necromancer and its minions that's his problem as long as he cuts the check,_ The blond thought to herself as she glared out the windshield. Taking a deep breath she tried to override the command, "Ya know, we're two fugitives short of the A-Team to be taking the front door approach." 

            "I should have hired MacGyver then," Kiaba quipped as he pulled the gas mask on.  Latairan blinked but shook it off as she got out of the jeep. Reaching behind the driver's seat the blond pulled out another gas mask and a holster holding a Glock and a pair of knives. She pulled the gas mask on and buckled the holster around her waist as she followed Kiaba. 

            They were half way to the central operations building when the crisp sounds of Mozart's Third Piano concerto slipped through the air. Latiaran's eyes narrowed and she pulled the Glock out of the holster and clicked the safety off as she mumbled to herself, "Necromancer in light puts up a fight. Necromancer in dark and you won't miss your mark."

            "What?" Kiaba snapped over his shoulder. Latiaran wondered if the billionaire was capable of speaking in a civil tone.

            "It's an old rhyme I learned a long time ago." Latiaran supplied. Kiaba snorted and continued on. Gritting her teeth Latiaran followed covering their backsides. 

            In the central operations building the necromancer laughed as she watched the pair in a full-length mirror. She reached over and picked up a wine glass that sat on a baby grand that played of its own accord. She sipped the red wine slowly savoring the taste. On inside of the Necromancer's forearm, just below the elbow, angry red lines were rising to the surface of her porcelain skin. The Necromancer dipped her index finger in the wine and then rubbed the wine on the rising lines.  The alcohol snapped and sizzled as the lines jumped to the surface and turned black. The twisting lines formed a skull with a serpent slithering out of the gaping jaw. 

            The Necromancer sat down at the baby grand and the keys stopped moving. Setting the wine glass down she put her thin, agile fingers to the ebony and ivory and began to play a darker tune. Beneath the demanding chords whispered to someone not there, "Soon my Lord, soon."   

Seto Kiaba glared at the sliding doors that had once been the entrance to the operations building of this particular complex. The glass was threaded with spider web cracks, and the doors no longer sat in their tracks properly. Standing behind his right shoulder Latiaran cleared her throat when she spoke her voice echoed out of the gas mask, "You still sure you want to go with the front door approach?" 

"They'd already know we're here wouldn't they?" Kiaba didn't turn his head to deliver the condescending remark. 

Latiaran chocked a frustrated sigh before it could leave her lips. She stepped forward so that she was shoulder to shoulder with the billionaire, "That doesn't mean that they've got other entrances covered."

Seto Kiaba replied to the argument by walking into the dead building. Latiaran watched him dumbly for a moment before her left hand reached up and pulled a sliver chain out from under her blue t-shirt. Her hand found the pendent of interlocking runes and clucked it briefly. Taking so comfort in the consistent coolness of the metal, Latiaran stepped in after Kiaba. 

They hadn't even made it a third of the way into the room before stench began to leak threw the filters of their gas masks. Kiaba's shoulders steeled and his jaw clenched, but he kept walking, "Do all Necromancers live in this kind of filth?" 

Latiaran swallowed the bile rising in her throat and blinked away the stinging tears that were trying to cleanse her eyes of the fumes, "How bad it smells depends on how many dead the necromancer has control over. If we can smell it through the masks…"

Kiaba stepped around a corpse of what had once been (to Latiaran's best guess) a scientist. His movements became quick and sharp when his quick eyes noticed the marks of teeth on one of the exposed bones. Kiaba's lips pulled in a snarl as he picked up his pace, "Where is this monster going to be?"

"To the northwest," A ringing voice said from above them. Kiaba and Latiaran spun on their heels and looked up to a veranda on the second floor. A woman stood there, sunlight from the skylight falling on her pale skin and black hair, She wore a flowing gray dress and in her left hand was a wine glass that held a red liquid to thick to be wine, her right hand was a slender wand of Elder wood. She pointed it at the two on the floor, "Welcome Seto Kiaba."

"What do you want?" Kiaba snapped as his feet slid into position for a fighting stance. 

"I want many things but will have to suffice with few… for the time being." The Necromancer laughed before she sipped the liquid in her wine glass. The red fluid coated her lips contrasting with the rest of her face, the necromancer took her time in licking the thick liquid off of her lips. 

"Blood," Latiaran snarled under her breath to Kiaba before raising her voice, "You got a name Necromancer?" 

"Thalia," The Necromancer bowed. When she straightened her back she pointed her wand at Latiaran, "And you my dear witch have been missing your Birch wood wand for quite some time, haven't you? Tell me did it break in Egypt or India, you absolutely reek of old magic. As do you Seto Kiaba, but it is bound to your blood." 

"What have you done with my employees?" Kiaba brought the flow of morbid conversation back to where he wanted it abruptly. Latiaran stepped back to give herself a clearer shot at the Necromancer.

"It all depends on how long they'd have lasted. The weak ones fall quickly." Thalia said foppishly as she sipped the blood in her wine glass again. She swallowed and then continued, "If you want to see the one's who still live all you have to do is go down to the second sub-basement in the elevator over there." 

Kiaba glanced at the elevator out of the corner of his eye as the door slid open invitingly, the interior of the car was insanely pristine. Latiaran shook her head slight and then inclined it towards Thalia's position on the veranda. She spoke softly, "She's enhanced her senses somehow, go to her territory and you're dead or worse. If you want to finish this keep it up here, in the sunlight where her dead toys can't come play." 

Latin words fell from the Necromancer's lips. Latiaran drug air into her lungs as she squeezed the trigger of her Glock right before she was thrown to the floor. Latiaran's gas mask flew off and the stench of death and rot sent her head reeling. She rolled over and got to her hands and knees as acrid bile filled her mouth and tears streamed down her face. Beneath her the tile cracked and then shattered, and Latiaran fell through the floor. 

Kiaba heard the wine glass shatter as the Necromancer lost her grip on it when the bullet ripped through her left shoulder. He lunged towards Latiaran's fallen form but his finger's only brushed the material of her t-shirt as the floor gave out beneath her. Kiaba reversed his momentum to turn back to the Necromancer. Blood both from the broken glass and the Necromancer's bullet wound dripped over the side of the veranda. 

"Your little workers are two levels down from here. If you attempt anything other than stepping into that elevator I will kill you and then I will use your reanimated corpse to rip your brother's throat out." Thalia hissed as she pointed her wand at Kiaba's chest. 

"Don't touch Mokuba." The implied threat made the Necromancer back up a few steps. Thalia stopped her disobedient feet and stepped back to the edge of the veranda. For several long moments the two glared at each other. Then Kiaba turned heel and walked into the waiting elevator. 

After the doors slid shut, Thalia collapsed. Her breath came shallowly but she smiled sadistically, "I hope you like my remodeling Kiaba." 


	3. Chapter II

**Allegro for Crisis**

**_ Chapter II_**

_Deadman's Waltz_

The surface of the mirror rippled as Thalia the necromancer dropped to one knee before it. The image in the mirror settled into that of a tall man, lean but powerful in build with an angular face that would bring to mind cobras. The man's metallic red eyes looked down at Thalia, "What is your progress Necromancer?"

"Slow my Lord Voldemort," Thalia said reverently, "Seto Kiaba has proven stronger then I originally expected, but he is still only a muggle." 

"Don't try my patience playing your games Necromancer," Voldemort snapped harshly. 

Thalia's shoulders sagged like a whipped cur, "As you wish my Lord." 

The image of Voldemort faded and Thalia began altering her plans to set her timetable ahead of schedule….

The chipper chime that sounded as elevator doors opened grated on Kiaba's already tense nerves. His eyes narrowed as he stepped out of the elevator car. The necromancer had made the sublevel out to look like the grand entrance hall of a Russian Tsar's palace. A major domo approached the young billionaire from the side, he bowed, "My Mistress is waiting for you in the grand ball room."

Kiaba snorted but followed the butler any way, the necromancer could play games if she wanted to. The major domo lead Kiaba down the entrance hall to a set of elaborate French doors, he opened the doors and stepped aside to allow Kiaba entrance. Kiaba stepped forward. A dozen dancers waltzed across the floor in pairs, or sometimes alone with arms wrapped around thin air and an illusion. Most of the dancers were dressed in lab coats or work clothes. Frowning Kiaba took off his gas mask and wrapped the straps around his belt. The air down here was stale and spicy but not noxious like the atmosphere on the main floor had been. The billionaire stepped farther into the ballroom and had to side step to avoid being run over by a single dancer. His cold blue eyes narrowed further as he saw the pot marked, red scars of puncture wounds on the arms and necks of those closest to him. 

"Muggles are so easy to manipulate," The necromancer's voice stated. Kiaba turned to see the dark haired woman standing in front of the French doors as the major domo slammed them shut and locked them from the other side. Confidante she had his attention the Necromancer continued, "A little opium, a deeply burrowed suggestion in the mind, and none will give me any trouble until I need them." 

            Kiaba's lips pulled in a sneer and his fists clenched. The necromancer took no notice as she walked past him. She stopped a young man dancing by himself and took the role of his imaginary partner she lead the dance as she continued to speak, "This little group won't stop dancing until I let them, and they've already been dancing for five. Then I'll leave them to their suffering while another group dances."

Kiaba pulled the necromancer away from her drugged dance partner when she came with in arm's reach. He twisted her left arm behind her back viciously. The poorly healed bullet wound pulled open and began to bleed again. The necromancer gasped in agony. Kiaba pushed her left arm to the threshold of breaking, "Let them go." 

"There will be a catch," The necromancer said in a breathy voice.

"No there won't," Kiaba pushed harder to illustrate his point.

"I've had three days to meddle in these pathetic fools minds as I please fool!" The necromancer shouted incensed, "I _am_ their conscious thought. They do as I please without me most would drown in their own spittle now!"

"You're bluffing." Kiaba stated flatly. 

The necromancer growled in frustrated rage, "Life for Life! Theirs' for yours, and I will leave them their own minds." 

Kiaba made no reply but to put more pressure on the limb in his grasp. The Necromancer screamed wordless rage and pain… her screams mingled with another. The young man she had danced with earlier writhed on floor in agony. The screams crescendoed and then ended when Kiaba shoved the Necromancer to the floor with a broken arm.

"Do you enjoy their torment?" She raged as a small serving girl walked up to Kiaba's side carrying a tray with a wine goblet on it, "Life for Life Seto Kiaba, take responsibility for those you use! Drink the draught and I forfeit my control over their pain!"

Kiaba glanced side long at the goblet with no decision showing on his face…. 


End file.
